And as she said those words, the piece of paper was blown out of her hands with a sudden breeze. Floating through the air, the page disappeared in a cloud of sparkling dust, while the drawing remained. It grew in side, stretching into the third dimension. Three realistic mattresses appeared on top of one another, perfectly above the pit, and one by one fell into it, forming the perfect bridge across.
Susie put her fist into the air. "Hell yeah, go Noelle! I can't believe I haven't thought of that myself." Berdly shook his head, still processing what he just witnessed. "You and me both, Suzie."
While Susie tried to discern whether she heard him right, the three stepped onto the "bridge", realizing that the mattresses were completely solid, with the spring coming out of one barely budging when Susie poked it. Before she could voice this observation, the hat that previously hung above spun off the root, hovering in the air, spinning around as it talked, with the handle remaining in place. "Ah, thank you much, kind heroes! I was beginning to think I'd be stuck up there forever!" All three could only stare as the hat approached them, still floating above the bridge, when it stopped before them. "Ah, 'scuse me." It shot up above their heads, continuing to fly forward above the treetops, not descending even once it cleared the gap.
Berdly blinked twice. "Was... that an enemy?"
Susie looked forward, eyes tracing the rapidly retreating darkner. "...maybe. Don't think about it too hard, you'll start a fire with all the grinding in your brain." She stepped off the bridge, now looking at the assortment of colorful trees next to them. "Trying to make sense of everything here is like fighting against a dream, and—" she jumped up, barely reaching one of the thick leaves, clinging onto it, "phew. Hey, uh— mind lending a wing?"
Berdly looked up at her as she unceremoniously hung from the red tree, whose leaves looked suspiciously like flattened pencils. He thrust his arm in the air, his neon halberd manifesting as he spoke. "Worry not, my thick-scaled auteur!" With a swift dash, a precise swing, and a heroic screech, he severed the "leaf" at the base, sending it — and Susie — tumbling to the ground with a loud splat.
Berdly lowered his hands, hearing Noelle stifling a laugh behind him. "Ahah... Perhaps I should do the rest by myself."
Susie groaned into the pulpy floor, trying to avoid swallowing any fake grass. "Good. Idea."
Berdly hopped forward, swiping different colored pencils off the treetops while Susie dusted herself, helped up by Noelle, who was still smiling. For some reason, simply being here, existing in this reality made her worries disappear. Susie and Berdly felt it, too, the overwhelming desire to explore, to talk to everyone, to stay here for just a moment longer, before inevitably waking up. Susie, more than the rest, recognized this dangerous seduction, and she wasn't immune to it, either.
Berdly quickly made his way back to the couple, holding almost a dozen giant pencils in his wings. "This... should be... e-enough? I don't suppose we have anywhere to put them, do we?"
Susie looked over the giant pencil in her hands, almost as thick as her forearm. A smug grin stretched across her face as she pulled it forward. "Yeah we do. Watch this, noob." She put her index talon into her jacket's pocket and opened it as the two watched. Then, as if demonstrating a magic trick, Susie shoved the whole pencil inside, with the leather outside her pocket barely moving as the red core disappeared within. "Try your armor, you should be able to stuff items into it."
